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New truck body pics

08-07-2007, 09:03 AM

finally remembered to bring camera. I am making an aluminum flat bed for my wife's new work truck and have taken some pics. I started by removing the original 8' bed. I then made the top of the frame staright by using sqaure tubing and then spliting it to the correct height. Then I welded them to a 3/8" piece of flat bar. Its bolted in the original body bolt holes and supported in the same places as the original body. I then ripped a piece of oak and bolted on top of the flat bar. I counter sunk the bolts and painted it all

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I've got all the cross members on and the main mounting brackets made. I used all exsiting holes in the trucks frame and bolted the plates to the aluminum channel. In case the aluminum doesnt hold up I can change the brackets to steel. The rear brackets will have springs inside them but their not on there now. I notiched the ends of the cross channel pieces to fit inside the channel where the floor pates will line up. i'm going to put the band around the outside next and more braces. I'll post more as I get further. Bed is now off the truck so more welding can be done with out fear of damaging an electronic component.

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Gas 5.4. didn't want the diesel. The truck will never be heavy loaded and will be driven around a resort town. I'm not a big fan of the 6.0. Even though they run very strong. We have lots of them were I work and have had to work on them often with some pretty expensive repairs. [head gaskets, injectors etc]The old 7.3 did better by us. The new 6.4 the jury is still out. We now are buying the 6.6 duramaxs and so far no issues except lots of instrument clusters. I'm sure this should make the Ford diesel lovers scream

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The sheet is 4' wide so the seam will be off center. its 8' long. i didnt want to cut both sheets to run it the other way. The left over piece from the narrow section I will use for the rear. That aluminum diamond plate is to high to waste. Something like $300 a sheet

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Aluminum cause I wouldn't have to paint it. Also I just wanted to make something out of aluminum and it'll look cool. I seldom ever get to build something out of aluminum, most aluminum jobs I get are repairs. Its Light too, but that is not a big issue. Also she works at the beach, even though alum corrodes it might hold up better than paint

Scott
HMW [Heavy Metal welding]

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Finally got the deck all on and put it on the truck. Flipped it upside down and welded the deck from the bottom so no welds on top. Cut in the rear and side lights, still need to cut in back up lights. Tried the 5356 but didn't like it. Did not seem to be as fluid or flow as nice as 4043 or maybe it was me, Also seemed to be alot dirtier weld. Switched back to the 4043 and did good except for the typical bird cage and welding itself the the tip. Anybody else have that trouble with their spool gun. It usually does it as soon as you pull the trigger although a couple of times it did it during welding a bead. Cant figure out if its me or the machine.

Well I was going to post some pics, but now I remember why I dont from home. Takes forever. I'll post them Monday from work.

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Your right you can tell the 5356 is harder. One problem is the 4043 on my machine will weld thicker material than the 5356. The side band is 1/4" and the deck is 3/16". Using the 4043 i had to turn the machine up to its max setting for 4043 to get a good weld. The welder is a Millermatic pulser. Basically a 210 with pulsed spool gun. Everything I've welded with it in the past has been thinner than this. It welded nice with the 4043 but used about 8-10 tips in the process. At $1.59 a tip that sucks. It seemed sometimes the arc would strike then not feed enough wire to keep it from burning back to the tip. Or maybe it would birdcage, then of course not feed so it would burn back. Hard to tell because it happens in a split second. I tried different distances form the weld with no difference. Frustating to say the least to have to keep stopping, change the tip, get the old piece out, if I could and clean out the birds nest in the gun.